The Music Of Dolphins

Mila plays her recorder constantly. Her abilities have developed to the point where she can now use music to fluidly improvise whatever kind of song she wishes. The researchers give Mila a soundproof room so that she may play as often as she chooses. She creates long, complex songs, which change as they progress and transform depending on the story she desires to tell. These songs represent the experiences and sounds that she remembers from the sea.

Mila visits Shay and watches through the window as she imitates a hand game that they learned together months before. Shay has clearly not made any progress. If anything, she has become increasingly withdrawn. Mila enters the room and listens as Shay stumbles through a song that she is supposed to sing with Dr. Troy. Mila becomes irritated at Shay for making music sound so awful. Mila wonders why Shay has not made the same progress as she has and backs out of the room. As she leaves, Mila bumps into an inflatable doll. Without thinking, she hits it.

Mila reflects on how she felt watching Shay and how she and Shay have grown apart. She realizes that she used to like Shay’s singing, no matter how rough it was. Now that it irritates her, Mila wonders if she is finally “human enough.”

Mila brings her recorder to Shay and shows her how to use it. Shay blows hard and the recorder squeals so loudly that it hurts Mila’s ears. She tries to let go of the anger this brings her but cannot tolerate the sounds that Shay is making. As such, she leaves Shay to be happy with it on her own.

Dr. Troy hands Mila a recorder. She knows at once that it is not her own. When she learns that Shay is the one responsible for destroying her original recorder, she breaks down and cries.

Sandy tells Mila that Shay’s progress has stagnated. Sandy explains that that is normal for all children found in a feral condition—all except for Mila.

Mila’s music therapist, Dr. Peach, gives her another recorder. This one has more similarities to her original instrument than the recorder given to her by Dr. Troy. Even so, the instrument does not feel the same to her. Everything feels wrong in Mila’s life, and she makes the saddest music she has ever made.

Mila reaffirms her decision to return to the sea.

Mila learns that Shay is to be moved away, as the government no longer wants to fund research on her. Mila thinks that the only thing Shay learned from living with the doctors was how truly horrible it is to be imprisoned. Shay, she reflects, “lived a life locked in and alone, but she did not know. Now she knows” (154).

Mila wonders what she wants out of life and what her future holds. She realizes that she will be seen as a “dolphin girl” for as long as she remains among the humans. In their eyes, she will always be an object to “drag and toss around, but in the end a thing to leave behind” (156).

Shay leaves. Mila goes outside to see her off, but Shay stares ahead with lifeless eyes. Mila cries as she watches the car take Shay away forever.

Mila dreams that a pod of dolphins has beached themselves on the shore, and she asks everyone in the house to help save them. They rescue the dolphins, who wait a moment to see whether Mila will join them in the ocean. Mila is aware that the dolphins no longer see her as one of their own and realizes that she can no longer make dolphin calls. She wakes up unable to remember what the dolphins sounded like. Mila goes to Shay’s room and finds it empty.

Mila can no longer bring herself to eat. The researchers once again attach her to a feeding tube.

As Mila weakens due to lack of nourishment, her journal entries become dreamlike and vague. They mention how she goes to hear the sea with Justin, as well as her feeling that she is perpetually in the wrong room. She watches Justin and his mother be affectionate toward one another and tells Justin he would “make a very good dolphin” (162). He replies that she would “make a very good human” (162).

The print in Mila’s entries starts to enlarge again, and she tells Dr. Beck she must go home to the sea. Dr. Beck explains that letting her go involves breaking the law. Once the government finds out, they might send Dr. Beck to prison. Mila, however, knows that Dr. Beck is “already in prison” due to her obsession with artificial conceits like personal legacy (163). Sandy insists that they should let Mila go, as they have caused her too much undue suffering. However, Dr. Beck says that they can only visit the sea; they cannot allow Mila to stay there.

Musicians visit the house to play for Mila in the hopes of raising her spirits. However, she cannot remember how to make sense of music, much less how to play it.

Mila starts to forget what she learned of human language: how to speak, read, and write it. She no longer wants to practice or to work. Instead, she spends her time wondering when she can go home.

Dr. Beck and Mila make a bargain that if Mila eats, she can visit the ocean. Sandy stays with Mila all the time, stroking her hair and soothing her nerves.

Mila is on a boat with Dr. Beck, Sandy, and Justin. Justin seems happy and Mila has the feeling she is finally going to be allowed to return home.

Dr. Beck and Sandy are happy when dolphins appear and begin swimming alongside the boat, but Justin notices that Mila appears out of place. Mila knows that this is neither her ocean nor her dolphin family. She feels like a stranger. She senses that she has once again been cheated out of the chance to return home.

Mila inquires after Shay. She is told that Shay no longer remembers her time with Mila or the doctors. Mila wonders if the dolphins have forgotten her too. Dr. Beck feels sorry for Mila.

Mila feels comforted by Justin’s presence, as he understands her better than the other humans do. Mila wonders why humans insist on living for the future, when “what is important is now” (173).

Mila’s thoughts intertwine and she finds it difficult to make sense of anything. She wonders if she can ever forget being human, and Dr. Beck promises her that “being human gets better” (174). Mila appreciates her promise but notes that nothing can improve until she returns home. Indeed, she thinks, “I have been coming back to the sea from the moment I left it” (175).

Mila realizes that she carries an imprint of what home feels like within herself. She may not understand where this internal sense comes from, but when she looks inside her heart, she says, “[T]here it is. I know. I know” (176).

Finally, Dr. Beck, Sandy, and Justin take Mila back to the island from which she was captured. Her dolphin family appears a short distance from the shore and calls to her. Recognizing them, she asks Dr. Beck to “give [her] to the water” (178). Dr. Beck initially refuses, scared for Mila’s life. Mila insists that the dolphins are her family and reassures Dr. Beck that they will keep her safe.

Justin wraps his arms around her. As they embrace farewell, Mila closes her eyes and thinks, “I am glad in the end to know the arms of Justin” (178). Finally, he gives her back to the ocean.

Mila is back with her dolphin family, breaking through the waves, surging through the deep, and sleeping in a nest on the cay as she sings the song of who she is to the night. Her dolphin mother responds with her own calls.

Mila sometimes remembers her time being human, particularly the kinder people she met and the boy whom she loved. Dr. Beck, Sandy, and Justin had waited for hours in the boat in case she changed her mind and decided to return to them. In fact, she nearly did so—and she feels a strong, sudden sense of “wanting” for them now. But this desire passes, as it always does. Those memories always give way to the ocean and to her life with the dolphins. She curls herself up in her hair and falls asleep.